PRIME SOFTWARE: THE RIGHT PICK

Prime Software and Mike Jurado, it's president and CEO, were featured in the Tech section of Entrepreneur Magazine on its September issue entitled "The Right Pick."Here are some excerpts from the article:

"Services businesses with less than five employees can initially use Excel and other less sophisticated software to record data, then gradually adopt ERP systems to monitory cross-departmental functions more efficiently as they expand. If a company gets too overwhelmed with raw business transactional data, it may be time to use ERP systems to use information more effectively and address chronic delays in business reporting," says Mike Jurado, president and CEO of Prime Software Philippines, a software developer which designs ERP solutions for SMEs.

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While sales front office and back office support modules are must-haves in any ERP system, companies can also opt to integrate payroll, fixed asset management, production, industry front office, and customer relationships modules into their existing systems to boost their competitive advance, says Jurado. These include time, attendance, and fleet management features linked to third-party devices like scanners and GPS systems.

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ERP platforms can also be enhanced with features to better manage sales and marketing. “Customer relationship management is good if your sales organization is really big and dynamic,” says Jurado.

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While useful, ERP solutions are costly, Jurado says entry-level all-in ERP platforms for SME’s cost around P400,000 to P600,000, at a minimum. If you go for the leading global brands, be to spend millions or ten millions of pesos,” he says. The cost, he explains, depends on the size of the organization, number of modules and user licenses, users’ training timetable, customizations or custom-fitting, third-party integrators fees, and annual maintenance fees.

Businesses can also opt for a cloud-based platform, which doesn’t need as big an investment at the onset as users only pay a setup fee and monthly software rental. But Jurado warns this could be costly in the long run. “You never get to own the software license at all, so chances are that if you have been renting for three years or more, the total amount paid could have afforded you to permanently own a standard ERP license instead,” He cautions.

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“Basic integrated FO-BO[front office-back office] implementations usually take a minimum of three months, when the conditions are all conducive. The more customizations, the more modules, the timetable goes up anywhere between four and six months ideally… It is during [this stage] that businesses need to hold hands with the ERP provider,” says Mike Jurado of Prime Software Phils.